Google Just released some awesome new features for the Google Spreadsheets. Here is the list of features in a nice bulleted fashion:
- Publish a spreadsheet in a variety of formats such as HTML or PDF.
- Embed a spreadsheet into any website or blog. It even lets you include multiple sheets and your visitors will be able to easily switch between them.
- Syntax for a new formula: =GoogleFinance(“symbol”, “attribute”)
“symbol” represents the stock symbol of the company you’re looking for (i.e. GOOG, QQQ, etc.) and “attribute” represents the type of market data that you desire ( i.e. Price, Volume, etc.). Full list of available options can be found here. - Syntax for a new formula: =GoogleLookup(“entity”, “attribute”)
where “entity” represents the name of the entity that you want to access, like Kuala Lumpur, Audrey Hepburn, or oxygen, and “attribute” is the type of information that you want to retrieve. Examples of entities and attributes can be found here.
To publish or embed a spreadsheet you’ll need to click on the “Publish” tab towards the upper-right corner of the screen and select “More publishing options.” Then you will be presented with a drop-down menu of publishing options and this is an example of the embedded HTML spreadsheet:
The whole retrieving live data feature reminds me of what the other online spreadsheet service, called EditGrid, already offered. However, I think Google has found a way to make it easy for anyone to implement without much understanding of how it works. I am still partial to the Web Queries that Excel offers because they give me a lot of control over the specific content that gets retrieved but Google is definitely onto something.
News Source: Google Operating System
Jeez, with the full Google docs suite and file type compatibility with MS office, is there really a need for a desktop office suite?
Maybe the relationship between web and desktop office suites will evolve to that of web-mail and desktop mail.
BTW: Just got to say I LOVE that your comment posting doesn’t require log-in or Email confirmation. The hassle really deters me from other sites
This is fantastic. The financial formulas are awesome. I just put a stock portfolio on the web. Now I can update and share it. Just have to give my associates the URL.
MS Office’s days are numbered.
I do think it’s a good idea that Google is expanding their Docs & Spreadsheets, but putting in too many features would take away what I find makes it competitive with Office – its simplicity. Long has Office plagued me with its creeping featurism and menus-buried-in-menus. Nobody really needs 90% of their features. They include anything that anybody might ever want, while making the worthwhile 10% incredibly difficult to use.
I like the idea that web document editors would be easily integratable with their desktop counterparts, though having all of your documents stored online would be impractical for most people. It’s very plausible though, with MS’s launch of Office Online.
I would probably start to use this insanely more if Google offered an offline solution to creating, editing, and saving documents. And then the online version would be for easy access from anywhere.
Our goal isn’t to gain a large number of registered users like some sites and we have enough spam prevention setup that we are able to make commenting easy for our readers. Even in the forums that we started you don’t have to register in order to reply to a topic…just say what you want to say and post it. My goal for the site is to build a community around people that love technology and thrive off of new products. We think it is a great idea to eliminate the need for registration in order to participate. Thanks for your kind feedback!
Hmmm…The only way that I can see MS Office’s days being numbered is if Google teamed up with………OpenOffice.org! How sweet would that be if they had a partnership with them the same way that they do for Firefox. Then they could work on a way to synchronize documents from your desktop to the Google Docs in just a few clicks.
You are so right! Microsoft Word has over 1500 features and that is why Microsoft decided it was time to redesign the interface. The new interface does make it a lot easier to find what you are looking for but one of the biggest problems is that people don’t even think to look for the features. One example would be mail merge. Think about all of the people that type out the names and addresses onto envelopes when mail merge makes that task a piece of cake.
They could make it an [tech.cybernetnews.com]!
I didn’t even know about it…
I use mail merge quite a bit ([office.microsoft.com]). In fact, it was such a highly requested feature from OpenOffice.org that [documentation.openoffice.org] it as well.
Here is how Microsoft describes that it could be useful:
It is pretty cool especially for sending out things like invitations. I just keep a single database of our whole family and their addresses…then I can print personalized invitations or cards in seconds.
I really like the fact that you can embed your spreadsheet into your website.
And as much as I love Google Docs & Spreadsheets and OpenOffice, I don’t believe that MS Office’s days are numbered.
As I see it, there will always be a demand for a desktop office suite. Millions of people keep personal and private information in their documents and they will want to feel the security of keeping these documents with them on their own PC.
To believe the masses will put their private documents on Google’s servers is quite a stretch. It doesn’t matter what features Google provides either. So demand for a desktop office suite is not going anywhere.
But, as Ryan said, an OpenOffice/Google partnership would definitely put some pressure on MS, as Google will offer the best of both worlds. I’d love to see that happen.
MS Office will be more profitable then ever. As more ways to improve automation is built into MS Office it will be even more appealing to businesses and that is after all where the real money is.
Most non-business users only need a very small percentage of the features in MS Office. Therefore, Google Docs and Spreadsheets with it’s limited feature set and great price
, will put enormous pressure on the bloated and expensive MS Office suite.